NEWS FLASH!

TRIUMPHS OF WARSAW AUTUMN, PART I

Among many music events held in September in Poland the 43rd International Festival of Contemporary Music "Warsaw Autumn" was the most
impressive. The programs, the concerts, the performers, the organization, and the audiences did not leave any room for improvement. Under
the skillful leadership of composer Tadeusz Wielecki, the Festival found a new audience among young students (estimated at 70% of the attendees), enticed
to attend by an extended promotional campaign, masterminded and, in part, realized by Wielecki himself. For the first time this year, the festival
did not cover the city with posters announcing its programs. Instead, a brochure popularizing and explaining contemporary music was produced
and distributed among students of high schools and of universities and colleges. In addition, information about the concert was available via
tourist offices, hotels, the press, radio and TV. This promotional strategy proved to be very effective since numerous concerts, often with
very difficult program (and excellent performers) were sold out, including the final extravaganza in the
courtyard of the Royal Castle in Warsaw.

In reaching out to new audiences and reformulating the framework of the festival, Wielecki (in charge of the Festival for the first time) drew
from his experiences as artistic director of the World Music Days, organized in 1992 by the Polish Society for Contemporary Music. He also faced
some unusual challenges - not only was the Warsaw's National Philharmonic hall closed for renovations (to open only for the Chopin Competition in October).
The second most important site for concert, i.e. the Chopin Academy of Music was also unavailable this year. But necessity is the mother
of invention, and the Festival found new and exciting venues including the Witold Lutosławski Concert Studio of the Polish Radio for many orchestral and chamber concerts,
the Stefan Demby Auditorium at the National Library and the Collegium Nobilium Theatre of the Academy of Drama for recitals,
the Grand Theatre for the opening night, and the Sport Hall of CWKS Legia for a spatial music extravaganza including the Polish premiere of
Karlheinz Stockhausen's Gruppen.

The performance of Gruppen was one of the highlights of the festival and the unusual venue added to the appeal of the unusual music - one must
say that some classic works of modernist tradition, including Gruppen, age extremely well and sound as fresh and exciting 50 years after being
written as at the moment of their creation. I have some doubts about the historical durability of two other spatial works on the same program, the world premiere
of a Warsaw Autumn commission from Martin Smolka and Diamonds by Alvin Lucier (with its unbearable low pitches, and slow glissandi, this piece tested
the limits of the most sensitive listeners). By the time we had a chance of enjoying this concert, 8 other concerts already took place. The opening
night at the National Opera hall inspired reflections about ways of promoting new music in Poland and the U.S. The auditorium was full; 1200 people raptly
listened to the complexities and intricacies of Par Lingren's OAIJE, Zygmunt Krauze's Piece for Orchestra No. 1, Kazimerz Serocki's
Forte e piano, Pascal Dusapin's WATT, and Iannis Xenakis's Ata. Two of these works were written 30 years earlier - music by
Krauze and Serocki appeared on the program as a sign of continuity of contemporary musical traditions and were, by their juxtaposition with music of the last few years, "tested" for
artistic durability. Both passed the test with flying colors, but the highlight of the evening was Dusapin's capriccious fantasy for trombone (the incomparable
Alain Trudel) and orchestra. The next highlight was also provided by a French musician - Pierre Laurent Aimard performed the complete cycle
of Ligeti's Etudes (reversing book II and III to end with a virtuosic flourish). His encore from Vingt regards de'l Enfant Jesu by Olivier
Messiaen left in tears some members of the rapt audience. An unforgettable event and a rendition of the Ligeti that would be difficult to surpass.

Aimard's recital was held on Saturday evening (16 September); later that night another treat awaited
the listeners at the Witold Lutosławski Concert Studio.
The Vienna Saxophone Quartet presented piees by Olga Neuwirth, Aleksander Lasoń, Sofia Gubajdulina, Roman Haubenstock-Ramati
and Steve Reich. The world premiere of Lasoń's composition, Muzyka kameralna no. 6: Saxophonium for saxophone quartet
and percussion was the highlight of the evening. With its textural contrasts, multi-cultural allusions, fluidity and sensuosity of the melodic
lines and kaleidoscopic outbursts of percussion, the work is sure to find a place in the repertoire ("pass the test of durability"). After my first, and only
hearing, I remember this music as enticingly sweet and expressive but far from sugary sentimentality - something to
look forward to on future concert programs.

Lasoń (b. 1951), as well as Andrzej Krzanowski (1951-1990), and Eugeniusz Knapik
(plus Rafał Augustyn from Wrocław) form a very strong group of Polish composers who had learnt their craft from Henryk
Górecki in Katowice. If there is a new, notable compositional
school coming out of Poland, it is a "Silesian School." I think that this school of musical creativity is somewhat
underrated, especially in comparison with the widespread popularity of the postmodernist school
from the class of Włodzimierz Kotoński in Warsaw, represented by Paweł Szymański (b. 1954) and Paweł Mykietyn (who, however, did not
yet complete his studies).

Lasoń and Krzanowski were linked on
the program of Warsaw Autumn 2000 in one more way. Katowice-based ensemble Orkiestra Muzyki Nowej [Orchestra of New Music], founded
by Lasoń in 1996, brought to the festival a monographic concert of Krzanowski's compositions, including the world premiere of Krzanowski's strangely
forgotten Audycja III for actor, sopran0, 2 accordions, trumpet, saxophone, electric guitar, percussion and slides (1974). can do with such simple resources (20-25 spotlights of different shades and sizes).

For
some strange reason, this magnificent work to poetry of Jacek Bieriezin has never been heard. What a loss it would have been if not for
Lasoń's ensemble and the program committee of the Warsaw Autumn. The Tuesday afternoon concert (19 September) did not include slides - since
the event was held in the Lutosławski Studio which has a very interesting architecture, the slides were replaced by a sparse and expressive
spectacle of colored lights, prepared by Małgorzata Dziewulska. At certain moments, precisely coordinated with the score, the colors changed
from blue to orange, the highlights shifted from percussion to the voice, long shadows appeared and vanished - it is amazing how much one may do with such limited resources.

As a contemporary-music concert-goer of considerable practice and well over 20 years of experience in this difficult and sometimes
daunting vocation, I found the Krzanowski program of Orkiestra Muzyki Nowej among my most favourite music events. The evening was perfect: the programming
(Audycja I, II, III, IV interspersed with fanfare-like Three Pieces for Oboe and Trumpet), the performance, the staging, the poetry, and
the music itself, which, after almost 30 years, did not lose any of its freshness and expressive power. Despite my great admiration
for the diva of modern harpsichord, Elżbieta Chojnacka, I thought that the OMN and not the Polish-French virtuoso should
have received the "Orpheus" award from Polish music critics, given during each of the festivals for the best performance of a Polish composition. OMN did not
just give one performance but presented a new formula of a whole concert that was captivating and memorable in its entirety. For this reason, I decided
to "vote" for Andrzej Krzanowski as our "Composer of the Month" and re-issue in our Newsletter the essay by Andrzej Chłopecki which I had the pleasure of
translating for the program book of the Warsaw Autumn.

Silesian musicians had another artistic triumph during the choral music concert held on Sunday in the beautiful Gothic interior of the Church
of the Visitation of the Holy Virgin Mary (Nowe Miasto district). Camerata Silesia and the Instrumental Ensemble of Silesian Philharmonic, conducted
by the hauntingly musical and beautiful Anna Szostak, performed an evening of Miserere-themed compositions: a Miserere by Witold Szalonek (1997),
the world premiere of Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, Lord... (Psalm for Choir) by Krzysztof Knittel (on commission from
the Polish Radio), and the Polish premiere of Arvo Part's Miserere. Of the three compositions, I was most impressed with the first one - Szalonek's choral
textures are complex and engaging for the mind to follow, while the means of expression remain both lyrical and captivating. For listeners
seated far from the performers it was a hard piece to follow - since the intricacies of vocal lines were lost in the cavernous reverberation of the church.
A similar fate was shared by Part's Miserere, a work of great moments and flawed beauty - especially in its concept of form (or lack of it). Knittel's
minimal-electroacoustic-folkish and, at times, "Meredith-Monk-like" Psalm bewildered with its quick trajectory through an assortment of moods
and states of mind associated with a range of greatest Psalm verses (from the most funereal to rejoicing). While the spiritual content and
monumental form of this work guarantee it a very warm reception in modern-day religious Poland, I welcomed with great joy another production by
Knittel, his appearance with Krzysztof Zarębski in a "performance art" spectacle at the Zachęta Gallery, called Weather Reports (and containing
recordings of L.A. weather on its soundtrack). This however, was a fringe event in the program and will be discussed in greater detail
in the second part of my report from the Festival which will appear in the next issue of the Newsletter. For now, let me close with congratulations to Tadeusz
Wielecki, the program committee of the Festival, and the festival office, led by Grażyna Dziura: Well Done!!!

NEWS:

14TH INTERNATIONAL CHOPIN COMPETITION

The 14th international Chopin Competition will begin this year on 4 October 2000, to celebrate the 20th anniversary of death
of Prof. Jerzy Zurawlew, an eminent pianist and piano teacher,
who initiated the competition in 1925. Zurawlew, who died at the age of
93 (just before his planned participation in the Jury of the 10th Competition), began his piano
studies in 1907. His
teacher was Aleksander Michałowski, a great Chopin performer. Zurawlew soon joined the ranks of Chopin aficionados when he became
a professor at the Chopin School of Music in Warsaw. The first competition was held in 1927, with 26 pianists from 8 countries. Since
then the competition was held every 5 years, with an interruption caused by the war and the destruction that it wrought in Poland.
Of symbolic importance was the 4th competition in October 1949 - held in a hall "Roma" where both the Warsaw Opera and Philharmonic were
temporarily located. The competition, held in a city still in ruins, revealed the importance of culture for the war-ravaged country. Since 1955 the
competition is held at the National Philharmonic Hall in Warsaw. Current information about the competition may be found on
music news pages in Poland, especially www.meloman.intermedia.pl and www.klasyka.com.pl.

Its main organizer, F. Chopin Society in Warsaw, has a web page with
information about its progress, at www.chopin.pl.
The web-site (in Polish) shows the calendar of events for
this year's competition, a list of candidates and jury, about
the competition, a history of the event, press releases and
MP3, a new section where you can hear fragments of works (14
so far) performed by previous winners: Argerich, Bunin,
Czerny-Stefanska, Davidovich, Giusiano, Harasiewicz, Kenner,
Oborin, Ohlsson, Sultanov, Thai-Son, Uninsky, Zak and
Zimerman. [MT and WW]

NO "REFERENCES" IN THE POLISH MUSIC CENTER

In September 2000, the Dean of the Thornton School of Music, Larry Livingston, and the Founder and Honorary
Director of the Center, Ms. Wanda Wilk, agreed to introduce one change to the name of our center, i.e. to remove
the word "reference" from its midst. The primary reasons are of convenience: the name of the Thornton School
of Music has been extended after the recent "naming gift" by Flora L. Thornton and the whole name of the PMC
became too long. In addition, the term "reference" was often confused with "research" or "resource" and, as it
turned out during the Warsaw Autumn Festival 2000, was extremely difficult to translate into Polish without
resulting in a monstrously long name.

This official name change, effective immediately, and gradually added to all promotional material of the PMC,
is accompanied with a private re-naming of Dr. Maria Anna Harley, who decided to honor her parents, victims of a horrible
tragedy, by returning to her birth name "Maja Trochimczyk."

POLAND - U.S. MANUSCRIPT DONATIONS

On 23 September 2000 at the Presidium Hall of the Polish Composers' Union in Warsaw a ceremony of
donating manuscripts to the Polish Music Collection took place. The date was set in collaboration with the office
of the Warsaw Autumn Festival of Contemporary Music and this event was listed in the program book of
the festival, as one of
the fringe events.

During the ceremony nearly 20 composers were present and gave over 40 manuscript
scores, sketches, as well as publications, recordings and other material, to enrich our Manuscript Collection. The
collection was initiated in 1985 with a very important gift from Witold Lutosławski.

Before this new "donation drive" which began
in June 2000, the PMC Manuscript Collection included works by Lutosławski, Skrowaczewski, Baird,
Bruzdowicz and Ptaszyńska (a total of 22 manuscripts). These manuscripts are held on deposit at the Special Collections
department of the USC Libraries, in secure and properly airconditioned vaults.

In June the collection was expanded by two sets of manuscripts
from Krzysztof Meyer (the opera Cyberiada in three volumes, and sketches for the 10th String Quartet),
Wanda Bacewicz (sketches and manuscripts of six pieces by Grażyna Bacewicz), and Joanna Kaczyńska (letters from
Aleksander Tansman to Tadeusz Kaczyński). (see the September newsletter for more details).

During the event, the attendees (composers, musicologists, music critics, journalists from two TV stations and
the radio) were welcomed by Krzysztof Knittel, president of the Polish Composers' Union, Tadeusz Wielecki, director
of the Warsaw Autumn Festival (pictured speaking in the photo), Tania Chomiak-Salvi, cultural attache of the American Embassy in Warsaw, and
Maja Trochimczyk (PMC Director).

Materials from
Krystyna Moszumańska-Nazar and from Zbigniew Bujarski were delivered to the meeting; numerous
other composers made a pledge to donate later, including Eugeniusz Knapik and Rafał Augustyn present among
the guests, as well as Prof. Włodzimierz Kotoński, Bogusław Schaeffer, Marek Stachowski, Grażyna Pstrokońska-Nawratil,
Paweł Mykietyn, Jacek Grudzień, Witold Rudziński, and many others.

In April 2001 I will personally receive the materials from composers based in Kraków (Marek
Stachowski),
Wrocław (Rafał Augustyn, Grażyna Pstrokońska-Nawratil) and Poznań (Andrzej Koszewski). Prof. Koszewski's
sudden health problems did not allow him to travel to Warsaw at this time; his manuscript will arrive safely
to take its place in the collection in the spring 2001.

All the composers received small gifts from PMC - an information package about the university, the Thornton
School of Music and the PMC, and flowers to express my appreciation. The results of this ceremony may be seen
during the
PMC Manuscript Exhibition and Concert, held at USC on October 21, 2000.

MANUSCRIPT EXHIBITION, 21 OCTOBER 2000

On Saturday, 21 October 2000, at the United University Church on the campus of the University of Southern
California (817 W. 34th St. Los Angeles, Corner of Jefferson and Hoover), at 2 p.m. there will be an official
ceremony of unveiling the exhibit of works by Polish composers, presented
in manuscript, sketch, score, and recording.

Over 30 composers will be featured (the list is included below) and the exhibition will be accompanied by a
chamber music concert, organized under the artistic leadership of Jan Jakub Bokun, and featuring pieces by selected
composers whose manuscripts may be found in the PMC collection. The concert starts at 3:00 p.m. and is followed
by a reception organized by Friends of Polish Music, led by President Wanda Wilk.

The list of composers whose work will be presented in the exhibit includes:

Krzysztof Baculewski - 1 manuscript

Grażyna Bacewicz (d. 1969) - 5 manuscripts (not all shown)

Tadeusz Baird (d. 1981) - 3 manuscripts

Joanna Bruzdowicz - 2 manuscripts

Zbigniew Bujarski - 2 manuscripts

Krzysztof Knittel - 1 manuscript

Zygmunt Krauze - 1 manuscript

Trochimczyk with Kulenty

Hanna Kulenty - 3 manuscripts

Szymon Laks (d. 1980s) - 10 manuscripts (not all shown)

Witold Lutoslawski (d. 1994) - 5 manuscripts (not all shown)

Roman Maciejewski (d. 1998) - 1 manuscript

Bernadetta Matuszczak - 4 manuscripts

Krzysztof Meyer - 2 manuscripts

Krystyna Moszumańska-Nazar - 2 manuscripts

Jan Oleszkowicz - 3 manuscripts

Roman Palester (d. 1980s) - copies made by the composer

Marta Ptaszyńska - 5 manuscripts (not all shown)

Kazimierz Serocki (d. 1981) - copies of 2 manuscripts

Edward Sielicki - 3 manuscripts

Ryszard Sielicki - 2 manuscripts

Trochimczyk with Twardowski

Elżbieta Sikora - 1 manuscript

Jarosław Siwiński - 1 manuscript

Władysław Słowiński - 1 manuscript

Stanisław Skrowaczewski - 3 manuscripts

Paweł Szymański - 1 manuscript

Aleksander Tansman (d. 1986) - 12 handwritten letters (not all shown)

Romuald Twardowski - 11 manuscripts (not all shown)

Tadeusz Wielecki - 1 manuscript

Henryk Vars - 1 manuscript

Barbara Zakrzewska - 4 manuscripts

Anna Zawadzka - 3 manuscripts

Lidia Zielińska - 3 manuscripts

The exhibit will present the largest selection of 20th-century Polish music ever displayed in the U.S.
The collection will have a Californian component. To better inform our viewers about the music
itself, several CD players with headphones will be made available and the visitors will be able
to browse through scores and recordings of the composers. I hope that my Californian readers
would be able to visit us, even if they don't read music. It is an important milestone in the
development of the PMC Collection, and an important event in the efforts to promote Polish
music in the U.S. The event is free but donations at the door will be accepted for the "Polish
Music Fund" (supporting the PMC operating budget), or "Friends of Polish Music" (our fundraising
organization).

RUBINSTEIN MONUMENT IN ŁÓDZ

A huge, new monument to the great pianist, Arthur Rubinstein was unveiled in September 2000 in Łódź at the
main street of the city, Piotrkowska. The monument is structured as a "juke box" - if one puts a coin in
it plays back music by Chopin or Tchaikovsky performed by Rubinstein. The sculpture consists of three
parts: a piano with an open score of Chopin's Piano Concerto in F minor (fragment is visible on the music stand)
, the pianist of natural size and
a decorative piano bench. The unveiling ceremony included a concert by the Łódź Philharmonics.

The Łowiczanie Polish Folk Ensemble of San Francisco (the group is afilliated with the
Polish National Alliance Lodge #7) celebrated 25 years of its activities
presenting Polish folk dances, music and songs. The event took place on Saturday,
30 Sep. with a Gala Silver Celebration honoring their founder
Krystyna Chciuk. Congratulations to all dancers and their families!

The contact information for this group may be found on PMC
Polish Dance page:
www.usc.edu/go/polish_music/dance/california.html.

LUTOSŁAWSKI'S MUSIC IN ATLANTA

The web site of "Symphony.org" reports about the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and
their recent program, which included Lutosławski's Concerto
for Orchestra. Pierre Ruhe of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution
notes that with the Lutoslawski work, director-designate
Robert Spano "won his first ASO triumph and sent a signal:
We're going to expand the repertoire into fascinating areas,
and it won't hurt."

GALA CONCERT FOR PNA

A gala concert featuring music by Chopin, Karłowicz,
Moniuszko and Wieniawski was held at the North Shore Center
for the Performing Arts in Skokie, Illinois on Sunday 27 August 2000.
It highlighted the 120th anniversary of the Polish National
Alliance, the largest Polish-American fraternal organization
headquartered in Chicago. The event attended by almost a
thousand people was organized by Mariusz Smolij, who
conducted the Symphony II Orchestra. The concert featured Polish-
American artists like violinist Andrzej Grabiec, pianist
Paweł Chęcinski, soprano Melanie Tomaszkiewicz, mezzo-
soprano Edyta Kulczak, tenor Jozef Homik and the PNA Dance
Ensemble "Wici," under artistic direction of Magdalena
Solarz. [Based on a report in Zgoda, the fraternal paper (1 Sep)].

RUMINSKI'S RECITAL IN L.A.

The recent performance at Zipper Hall in downtown Los Angeles
of the "up-and-coming bass" Valerian Ruminski brought out the
"singer's formidable talent" according to quotes by music
critic Josef Woodard, in a special report to the Los Angeles
Times. The audience was equally pleased with the Polish-
American's versatility, stage presence and above all, his
rich, deep, resonant voice by enthusiastically applauding
each song and giving him a standing ovation at the end.

The artist sang music by composers Handel, Purcell, Schubert,
Verdi, Puccini, Moniuszko and Gershwin in German, Italian,
Russian, Polish and English, being equally at ease in
whichever language he used. The Moniuszko aria, "Zanim
utrodzone oczy" was from the opera "Verbum Nobile."
The highlight of the program was the premiere performance of
six songs from a planned 18-song cycle to words by the late
poet Charles Bukowski commissioned by the soloist. The
composer, Persis Parshall Vehar, was present and acknowledged
the approval of her contemporary work, which was described as
"an impressive work in progress" by the music critic. The
music clearly reflected the mood and character of the poetry
and revealed the tender and humorous side of the famous poet.

Ruminski was accompanied on the piano by William Hicks,
the very accomplished pianist and voice coach, who is
assistant conductor at the Metropolitan Opera. They made a
great team. While still still on the roster of the New York
City Opera company, the artist who hails from Buffalo, will
be making his Metropolitan Opera debut as Zuniga in the
opera, "Carmen" on 17 January 2001.

The audience included many members of the Loren Zachary Voice
Society of Los Angeles, who were familiar with Valerian from
their last year's competition, where he won second prize.
Members of the Polish-American community seen mingling with
the soloist after the recital were Dr. Maria Łobodziński with
her daughters and friends; Maria Suski, president of the Los
Angeles branch of the Kosciuszko Foundation with two friends;
Dr. Maria Anna Harley, director of the PMC with her daughter, Anna,
and Dr. Marzena Grzegorczyk, a graduate student at the USC
School of Cinema and Television. [ww]

This marker of "youth" applied in reference to a composer who was 39 years old at the time of his death
is a consequence of a purely external matter. The Festival in Stalowa Wola (1975-1980), which was the
location of debuts for the so-called "generation 51" or the new "Silesian School" (Eugeniusz Knapik
- Andrzej Krzanowski - Aleksander Lasoń) was entitled "Young Musicians - For the Young City."
This title had wrong associations, because it fit perfectly the terminology used by the party apparatus
of the Polish People's Republic (PRL). It echoed the propaganda slogans used in the domain of cultural
life. It carried the "retro" aura of the 1950s rather than 1970s; it belonged with the posters of the
1st May "Workers' Parades," with the archives of the futurists, or of the Soviet Proletkult.
But the years 1975-1976 mark the start of cleansing of the "corrupted" language, the beginning of a
slow and gradual recovery of the meanings of "demeaned" words. Krzysztof Droba, while thinking up
the title of the festival that he programmed himself, took words seriously. To take words seriously
at that time, when "the second domain" (cultural life beyond the reach of censorship) was only
emerging, could lead to controversies - as was the case with this title-slogan.

In fact, only
during the time of the Orange Alternative (dissident, anarchist student movement in Wrocław),
one could fully appreciate the originality and novelty of Droba's conception of Droba. It is from
the programmatic point of view of the festival that Andrzej Krzanowski, (who was unquestionably
young, only 24 year old), was officially proclaimed "young." Yet, he was the first to appear at
this festival with a monographic one-composer concert.

The terms "new romanticism" was used for the first time in Poland in reference to Krzanowski's music
(during the Musical Encounters in Baranow Sandomierski in 1976). Primarily romantic was Krzanowski's
accordion - a common, lowly, provincial instrument, with stronger links to small towns than to folk music
of the villages. This instrument was an aesthetic provocation causing embarrassment in the realm of
high culture. Its legitimacy may have been justified by the careers of such instruments as the bass
clarinet of Harry Sparnay, the tuba of Zdzislaw Piernik, the double bass of Bertram Turetzky. Because
of the virtuosity of the performers, sonoristic composers entrusted more and more responsibility to
these instruments. In the second half of the 1970s Mogens Ellegaard's accordion appeared in the
domain of new music; his artistry on this instrument inspired dozens of composers. But the
accordion-player Andrzej Krzanowski was a composer himself, a composer writing for his instrument
- for his own instrument. This is the difference.

Therefore, it is difficult (though also both important and essential) to reduce Krzanowski's act of
raising the accordion to the ranks of respectable instruments, to an "innocent" penetration of the
sonoristic potential of the instruments of the "second rank" - especially because this instruments
embraces both a tonal world of thirds and sixths, and the distinctly provincial context. While
Krzanowski penetrated, enriched, expanded, elevated, and produced new possibilities in the areas of
timbre and articulation, the critics emphasized and discussed, all the while hoping to escape with
this accordion they wrote about from the accordion itself, escape by - for instance - informing that
Krzanowski used the accordion to portray or imitate the poetics of electronic music. But Krzanowski,
instead of treating this instrument as a stage, an episode, a distinctive accent in his career
(this would have been politically correct at that time), built his world from the accordion and
around it (this could cause anxiety). Thus, he behaved in a completely romantic fashion.

In the mid-1970s, Andrzej Krzanowski created a completely new tone in his music; he did it purely
intuitively in a human space-time which awaited him - more subconsciously than consciously. His phrases
became overly "espressivo;" his emotionalism was too vivid - both were dangerously close to artistic
exhibitionism. A poetic text recited amidst wailing sirens and the hysteria of the flexaton, opened
up a path towards banality which waited at the threshold. The quotations from Bach and Szymanowski,
introduced almost too easily, in gestures suspiciously full of acceptance and without the expected
traces of distance, threatened him with accusations of gratuitous writing and kitsch. Nonetheless,
everything that would not have been forgiven in Darmstadt, in Stalowa Wola made Andrzej Krzanowski
the main representative of the new wave in Polish music. This also was - in this case - romantic.

The music of Andrzej Krzanowski is a distinguished and thoroughly original ingredient in the group
phenomenon of a generation that also included Eugeniusz Knapik and Aleksander Lasoń. Three different
personalities were placed under a common denominator by commentators of the same - more or less -
generation, perhaps even somewhat against the intentions of the composers themselves, perhaps in a
gesture of "over-interpretation." Undoubtedly, this resulted from a hunger for new ideas, for new
creative personalities who could become the voices of the generation that lived at a time of signing
the Helsinki Agreement, at the time of emergence of the Worker's Defense Committee (KOR - dissident
organization in Poland). Before this common denomination was precisely defined it had become a myth,
a symbol, a legend. In 1998, during a seminar dedicated to the creative output of Andrzej Krzanowski,
which took place in the Cracow Academy of Music, Leszek Polony called Krzanowski the "bard" of our
generation (by "our" read: born around 1950). Some of these bards had a guitar strung from their
shoulder, this one had an accordion. So Krzanowski was our "bard." He created a wondrous new
art-form - the form of the "audition" (i.e. "audycja" - the same term as denoting a radio program)
in which the poetry was an equally important partner of the music. Bieriezin, Dolecki, Mrożek...
At a time when a certain generation wanted to have their own bard, Andrzej's choices of both poets
and the poetic content were quite peculiar. . .

It is worth emphasizing, though, that there is something that Krzanowski and his music undoubtedly
deserve - regardless of the labels affixed to him. When in 1976 he was "sentenced" under the name
of "new romanticism" this term did not yet designate something into which the whole stream of Polish
composers fell (led by the so-called "generation 1933"). It had nothing in common not only with new
simplicity, but also with new (?) banality, excitedly and hopefully responding to a pre-supposed
Zeitgeist. Krzanowski's scores - in spite of the label of "new romanticism" - belong among the
most inventive, the most modern, and, at times, even the most "avant-garde" creations of Polish music of the late 1970s and the 1980s (it is exactly at that time that the third term,
the "avant-garde" was losing its significance and value). Every two years since 1984, Krzanowski
attended the Darmstadt Courses for New Music, where he taught modern accordion. There, his
scores were greeted with suspicion; his instrument - with interest. Even though there is no causal
relationship between the two phenomena, several months after the death of Andrzej, the
"new complexity" was proclaimed during the 1991 Holland Festival. It was a response to a
"new simplicity," i.e. the final destination of everything that was defined as "new romanticism"
in 1976 (defined in reference to Krzanowski's music). In all that, his music remains innocent.

When one surveys Krzanowski's list of works, the density and intensity of his compositional activities
are quite striking. His symphonies, quartets, choral pieces, multimedia experiments, computer music
are a proof of his multiple capabilities, but his works for accordion - solo and chamber music, presented
in various sets and configurations, filling in the space from compositions destined solely for virtuosi
to works for children - indicated the field that Andrzej Krzanowski selected for himself to cultivate.
Such stubborn cultivation of the same field was a characteristic trait of the artisans (in the best
meaning of this word), of, say, the Baroque era -artisans treating their craft as a task to be realized,
as a service for those who needed their work. This was, in an obvious way, a romantic stance; it
remained romantic despite the fact that Krzanowski was increasingly being bombarded by commissions
for his accordion "auditions," for what he did best. In 1980s he travelled widely: Spain, France,
Germany, Italy, Japan. At the same time he constantly returned to "his" Czechowice. In this also
- though it could seem a paradox - he was a romantic.

* * * * *

NOTE:
The essay, translated by Maja Trochimczyk, first appeared in the program book of the 43rd International Festival of Contemporary Music "Warsaw
Autumn" (edited by Michał Kubicki and Elżbieta Szczepańska-Lange, but not Maja Trochimczyk as
erroneously printed in the book). Used by permission.